
Unlike last month, ADP and the government are in close agreement this month. ADP says 473,000 job losses in June and the government says 467,000 job losses.
Topics include economics, stocks, the recession, and the financial crisis.

Could you pass the U.S. citizenship test? I scored 100%. How well can you do?
The battered U.S. labor market took a step backwards last month as employers trimmed more jobs from their payrolls in June, according to a government report Thursday.Job losses since the recession began:
There was a net loss of 467,000 jobs in June, compared with a revised loss of 322,000 jobs in May. This was the first time in four months that the number of jobs lost rose from the prior month.
The June job losses were also far worse than the forecast of a loss of 365,000 jobs by economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
The unemployment rate rose for the ninth straight month, climbing to 9.5% from 9.4%, and hitting another 26-year high. Economists had been expecting that the unemployment rate would hit 9.6%.
Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.
The unemployment rate over the past five years:
The reason they can disagree is because they are measured differently. The job loss number is probably more reliable than the unemployment rate.
Economist and blogger Rebecca Wilder notes more signs of recovery here and here.
Now, let me say, some people say we can't do this but Hawaii does it. They cover 98% of their people and their insurance premiums are much cheaper than the rest of America...Now see Hawaii Congressman Neil Abercrombie's current description—from a recent email—of the poor shape of Hawaii's health care system, and thus the need for a national plan:
It's no secret. There's a healthcare crisis in Hawaii, and in the rest of the country. Medical bills are getting larger and more families are facing bankruptcy. Though most people over 65 are covered by Medicare, one of every four people in Hawaii under 65 has no health insurance, and probably has not seen a doctor in the last two years. Not only are families burdened by the costs, but healthcare providers are in dire straits, too. Our community hospitals will have to come up with $62 million this year to stay in business.I wonder how long the U.S. will have its new, wonderful universal health care system before it becomes a crisis that needs to be fixed with more government involvement.

Even when job gains per month rise above zero, the unemployment rate is likely to keep increasing, because it takes about 150,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with population growth.
I have occasionally compared the current recession to the early 1980s recession (1981-1982), arguing that the early 1980s recession was worse. The graph above makes the current one look worse. However, the graph above seems to be a peak-to-trough measurement. The early 1980s recession was the fourth in a series of recessions in which the unemployment rate didn't fully recover before the next recession hit, resulting in a peak unemployment rate that was significantly higher than the current unemployment rate. (And before the conspiracy theorists out there claim we can't compare the current unemployment numbers to those of previous decades, you're wrong.)
Note: I notice that Cornell University (my parents' alma mater, BTW) law professor William Jacobson linked to a previous unemployment post of mine. I agree with his thoughts, so I encourage you to read his post.
I got a copy of the Consumer Reports auto issue (April 2009).I subscribe to Consumer Reports, and I had a similar thought when I read that issue, but didn't think to blog about it. Here's a scan I made of page 15. Ford is fourth from the bottom. Click on the image to see a full-sized version:
Page 15 was particularly enlightening. There, in their "Automakers report cards," Consumers Union summarized their findings for each of fifteen major car companies.
Dead last was Chrysler. CU recommended zero percent of the Chrysler vehicles they tested. That's right—zero. Second to last was General Motors. CU recommended 17 percent of GM models. By contrast, most other companies had half or more of their models get the thumbs up. Honda was the top ranked brand; CU recommended 95 percent of its models.
Is it any surprise that Chrysler and GM are now in the process of going out of business? From the perspective of the Consumer Reports advice, it looks like their business model was to count on the ignorance of the buying public about the quality of their products. Their bankruptcy should perhaps be viewed as a success of the market system.
James
Virginia, United States
I'm a classical liberal, because I believe a system of personal freedom and free enterprise leads to greater well-being than other legal and economic systems.